When the kingdom of God would come

13 NOVEMBER (Lk 17,20-25)

The kingdom of God will come when there the King of this realm will rise. Prophets were always the heralds of this kingdom. Their description is beyond all human intelligence, imagination and fantasy. The first among them is Isaiah, who can rightly be called the prophet of the Lord’s Messiahthat in him he is also the Suffering Servant. His “visions” upset the mind and trouble the heart. They are a unique novelty, hard to be understood.They go beyond history as it is lived day by day.

But a shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse, and from his roots a bud shall blossom. The spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him: a spirit of wisdom and of understanding, A spirit of counsel and of strength, a spirit of knowledge and of fear of the Lord, and his delight shall be the fear of the Lord. Not by appearance shall he judge, nor by hearsay shall he decide, But he shall judge the poor with justice, and decide aright for the land’s afflicted. He shall strike the ruthless with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked. Justice shall be the band around his waist, and faithfulness a belt upon his hips.

Then the wolf shall be a guest of the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; The calf and the young lion shall browse together, with a little child to guide them. The cow and the bear shall be neighbors, together their young shall rest; the lion shall eat hay like the ox. The baby shall play by the cobra’s den, and the child lay his hand on the adder’s lair. There shall be no harm or ruin on all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be filled with knowledge of the Lord, as water covers the sea.

On that day, The root of Jesse, set up as a signal for the nations, The Gentiles shall seek out, for his dwelling shall be glorious. On that day, The Lord shall again take it in hand to reclaim the remnant of his people that is left from Assyria and Egypt, Pathros, Ethiopia, and Elam, Shinar, Hamath, and the isles of the sea. He shall raise a signal to the nations and gather the outcasts of Israel; The dispersed of Judah he shall assemble from the four corners of the earth. The envy of Ephraim shall pass away, and the rivalry of Judah be removed; Ephraim shall not be jealous of Judah, and Judah shall not be hostile to Ephraim; But they shall swoop down on the foothills of the Philistines to the west, together they shall plunder the Kedemites; Edom and Moab shall be their possessions, and the Ammonites their subjects. The Lord shall dry up the tongue of the Sea of Egypt, and wave his hand over the Euphrates in his fierce anger And shatter it into seven streamlets, so that it can be crossed in sandals. There shall be a highway for the remnant of his people that is left from Assyria, As there was for Israel when he came up from the land of Egypt (Is 11,1-16).  

For Christ the Lord, the Eternal King of the eternal kingdom of God, the kingdom does not come so as to attract attention. It does not consist instriking facts, upcoming, sudden, immediate revolutions, overwhelming episodes, disruption of peoples and nations, nor does it impose itself with force, violence, sword and armed armies. It is accomplished in a manner so invisible as to pass almost unnoticed to the eyes of the very history. Only when it is rooted in the hearts history sees it, catches it and suffers its truth, grace and light.

Asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, he said in reply, “The coming of the kingdom of God cannot be observed, and no one will announce, ‘Look, here it is,’ or, ‘There it is.’ For behold, the kingdom of God is among you.” Then he said to his disciples, “The days will come when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, but you will not see it. There will be those who will say to you, ‘Look, there he is,’ (or) ‘Look, here he is.’ Do not go off, do not run in pursuit. For just as lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be (in his day). But first he must suffer greatly and be rejected by this generation.

Even when it comes in its final form, at the end of time, all will take place in a few moments. We will not see it while it comes, we will see it already happened. Of this last advent we ignore time, mode and historical forms. We know it will come and that on that day the Lord will make the new heaven and the new earth. Everything will be transformed in an instant. Many yesterday and today have been and are the forgers of the truth. All the false prophets of the last advent of the kingdom of God were and will always be proven wrong by history.